


(you're my favorite because you're) a long shot

by overtture



Series: Infinitesimal [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Character Study, Scott Lang Needs a Hug, Scott Lang-centric, ask to tag, one day im gonna figure out waht character study means and when i do its all over for yall, or: scott has a bad time and he's still the marvel mvp of my heart, you are my dad (you're my dad! boogie woogie woogie!)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:43:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/overtture
Summary: [Endgame Spoilers]This is probably the most smart, incoherent, insane idea Scott's ever had. But all he needs is hope, if they have any to spare. Hope, and a more organized mind than he has to pull it off.





	(you're my favorite because you're) a long shot

**Author's Note:**

> i jsut got out of endgame like . a few hours ago and wrote this immediately afterwards. if youve read my other marvel fic, im not abandoning it for now as much as i plan on rewriting it but i just wanna say. i love scott lang with my entire heart and i KNEW he'd be the center piece on the fix-it of infinity war and im SO PROUD OF MY DAD, OKAY
> 
> i swear i'll write something more when i have. full grasp of my emotions and the english language
> 
> [title from the song No Good Al Joad by Hop Along]

The world is too big for Scott. 

It makes sense that his calling is in Ant-Man. Something that makes him and his world smaller. It’s natural. The laws of the world, even flipped as they are by Pym Particles, are still there, grounding him.

The world is so big, so, so incredibly large that it’s hard to really take it in, sometimes.

_–Scott Edward Harris Lang, he’s a father, he’s Ant-Man and an ex-con, he’s got a huge family, not many blood relatives, though. He’s been trapped for at least two hours in the Quantum Realm and–_

The world falls away in the Quantum Realm. It becomes large and small at the same time. It’s _wrong._ Everything’s fluid and twisting and changing, and it’s _wrong._ The longer he stays, the more he can feel _something_ creep under his skin, itching and crawling and _wrong–_

He’s sure everything’s fine. Everything’s fine, he repeats to himself as closes his eyes to quell nausea, puts his head between his knees and gags at the anxiety that burns fruitlessly up his throat. Everything’s fine and there’s probably a malfunction, everything’s fine and they’ll fix it. Everything’s fine and they won’t leave him here. Everything’s fine and he’s not alone.

Scott Lang is forced to accept, three hours in, that he’s completely and totally alone. Alone, with only his dread, anxiety, fear, and the warbling void around him to ground his sanity into place.

_–Scott Lang, Scotty, Tic-Tac, Lang. Cassie, Cassie, Cassie, Maggie, Paxton, Captain, Clint, Hope, Hank, Sam– Ant-Man, prison bars and stiff uniforms, Luis, twice. He’s alone, so alone, alone if not for Maggie and Paxton and Cassie, Hope and Luis and Hank and–_

_–Trapped for four– four? Four? One, two, three, four? Five, four? Four? F–_

Scott can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe–

 _– I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I_ **_can’t–_ **

One second he’s drifting and the next, he’s buried in cardboard and dust, bags and the smell of _old._

Two seconds he’s laying, baffled, and the next he’s scrambling to his feet because they were on a rooftop. They had all been _not here,_ and now _he’s here and nobody else is, why is everything dusty–_?

 

* * *

 

 

It’s been five years.

 

* * *

 

 

Five years.

The world is so big. So big, and so empty that it makes him feel even smaller than normal without a busy, noisy world to bombard him with noise and activity, without a screaming world to assault his senses and keep him grounded in the now.

Scott kinda wishes he was back in the Quantum Realm again.

Scratch that, he never wants to enter the Quantum Realm ever again after that, the thought itself makes his whole body revolt, but something is _wrong_ and he doesn’t know _what_ and that’s almost worse.

He tries not to think about the whys and the wheres and the whos, but panic digs his heels in and flight flutters to life in his chest, in his heart, in his legs. He steals Cassie’s old wagon from the storage before he leaves, and he finds a memorial.

 **Scott Lang** stares back at him, engraved, and each name he locates is another knife in his chest, digging into the sudden stitch in his side, into his lungs that struggle to heave in air.

The list stops after Hank and Hope and Luis and Dave and Kurt, and he can’t even find time or mind for the sudden weight of loss that threatens to drown him, because he’s already running home, running and gasping and eventually stumbling and crashing to his knees to _breathe, he needs to breathe, he needs to find Cassie and Maggie and Paxton and home, but he can’t breathe–_

Scott gives himself thirty seconds of gasping and wheezing and _loss, they’re gone, what happened, why, why, what, what happened, where did they go, why?_

Scott gives himself thirty seconds before he gets to his feet and begins walking home as fast and slow as he dares.

 

* * *

 

 

He knocks hard on the door, dread still beating like a war drum hard into his gut and deep in his chest, in time with his heart, but the unfamiliar face he can spot through the curtains makes his eyes water.

The teen opens the door and suddenly he’s fifteen again, seeing Maggie for the first time. The curve of her cheekbones, the arch of her eyebrows, the angle of her ears.

The teen stares at him, and all he can see is himself in her. The cut of her jaw, the point of her nose, the crows feet in her eyes, the lines of her face as they crease with lines that people her age shouldn’t have.

The teen is suddenly in his arms, and suddenly he’s holding his sixteen-year-old daughter who was supposed to be eleven, nearly as tall as he is, and she’s–

“–so big,” he can’t help but smile.

Cassie’s laugh is watery but large, and so tired that he can’t help but wrap himself around her, because she was never supposed to be as tired as he had been, was, would be.

 

* * *

 

 

He realized a few minutes in that something is wrong, only because she points it out. Both Maggie and Paxton are at work, but Cassie sticks like glue to his side, arms around him as he gestures.

She has to still his leg because it’s bouncing so hard, has to take his hands because he has no more knuckles to crack, has to relinquish her hold around his middle because eventually, he has to stand up to pace and gesture with more freedom without fear of smacking her in the face.

He doesn’t realize he’s just repeating himself until she cuts him off and tells him so.

He doesn’t realize how jittery he is until she reaches for his hand and he immediately trots over to take it, until he’s stilling under the brush of her thumb over the back of his scarred hand and she’s letting go to wrap her arms around him and he has to get on his knees to properly reciprocate.

Even five years later, five hours, both, the familiarity is a comfort to both of them.

She asks him what he’s thinking about.

“Nothing,” he says, truthfully. “I’m thinking about you. Thinking about a nap, about… what I’m going to do now.”

Cassie holds him tighter to her and he takes the back of her sweater in a white-knuckled grip.

“Breathe, Daddy.”

He feels breathless for a moment. Even now, five years separating them, she knows him better than he knows himself. She begins to count into his shoulder, and he breathes with her until he’s boneless on the floor, leaning into her.

“Five years,” he says.

She says nothing, holds him tighter.

“Five years, and for me, it was five hours, but… I knew something was wrong. I was hoping… I don’t know what I was hoping. I was hoping I was wrong, but…”

Her body shakes, and he can feel the temporary peace, the adrenaline, the _everything_ begin to return, his mind whirring back to life.

“What if…” No. No, it wouldn’t be possible.

“What if?” Cassie says, patient as a saint and familiar with him like no one has ever been.

Numbers flash at him and he pulls from as much of Hank’s teachings and half-minded ramblings as he can. “What if… the Quantum Realm…”

“The Quantum Realm?” She asks, leaning away to look him in the eye.

His mouth feels like cotton, his mind too preoccupied to try and keep up.

“What if– see, the realm, it doesn’t– what if we could bring every– time is– how many Avengers are still around?”

Her smile is a little slanted, some of them obviously didn’t make it, but her eyes are bright.

“You have an idea,” she whispers, hopeful and bright, lips quirking.

“I have an idea,” he parrots, smiling so hard his face aches.

 

* * *

 

 

He pounds his fist on the door long enough he wonders if maybe they gave up.

Five years is a long time.

But this is probably the most scattered, incoherent, insane idea he's ever had. But all he needs is hope, if they have any to spare.

They’re like him, he realizes as the metal doors slide up and open to two Avengers, wide-eyed and wordless in disbelief. They’re like him.

They burn, they burn, like stars and himself. They hold that loss, that immeasurable grief that crashes down with it, that anger and failure and passion, that unquenchable _hope._ They hold it all in iron grips, even as it burns and scalds at their soft palms.

Their skin is pale, bags deep under their eyes, but the hope in their eyes when he meets theirs with his own is flinty and remarkably bright. Brighter than anything left in this half-world, more balanced and _right_ than anything else he's come across on this planet, teetering on a fragile scale.

It's enough, as it's always been for their kind.


End file.
